The Marist College community is helping out the family of a healthy 30-year-old Marist graduate who died from COVID-19.

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Ben Luderer who attended Marist College on a baseball scholarship died last week from COVID-19. Marist won a MAAC championship in 2009, Luderer's freshman season.

"Ben was a loving husband, son, coach, teammate, and so much more to so many people. He was the first person to pick up his teammate after a big base hit. But more importantly, he was the first person to put his arm around you and pick you up after a devastating strikeout or error," former teammate Mike Orefice of Dutchess County wrote on Facebook.

Ben met his wife, Brandy, at Marist. She played on the Marist Women's Basketball team. She told Buzzfeed Luderer had no underlying health issues.

Marist Women's Basketball and Marist Baseball alumni joined forces to create the "Ben Luderer Memorial Fund," to help support the Luderer family.

"No words can describe how sad our red fox family is this week as it has suffered a great loss! We lost Ben way too soon at the age of 30," former Marist Women's Basketball player Julianne Viani Braen of Dutchess County wrote on Facebook. "In this difficult time, we are rallying behind his wife and my former Marist teammate, our sweet and kind Brandy as she and the rest of our family continue to mourn."

As of this writing, the GoFundMe has raised over 34,300 dollars.

"We kindly ask you to lean in with the Red Foxes and help us reach our goal in honor of Ben so that we together can continue his legacy within the community with his beloved wife Brandy," the GoFundMe states. "There will never come a time when we can stop mourning the loss of a man like Ben Luderer. Just as, for the rest of our lives, we will never stop remembering, honoring, and celebrating what Ben meant to the people and the community that he loved so very much."

Luderer was a special education teacher and varsity baseball coach for the Cliffside Park school district. He started felling sick a few days after his wife tested positive for COVID-19. His condition worsened and he went to a hospital days later.

His wife told Buzzfeed the hospital advised him to go home because staff thought staying at the hospital would worsen Luderer's condition.

Last Monday, around 6 a.m., when his wife checked on him, he was dead.

"He touched so many lives," Brandy told Buzzfeed. "Whether it be a coworker or an administrator or a player or a student, he always went out of his way to help people. He was a stand-up guy, a stand-up man."

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